After a couple of days without my 4550 because I was switching drives in my machines, I re-hooked it up and resumed performing transfer rate tests with this drive. I like this drive for TRTs because it's slightly picky, but not too much. It generally chokes only on discs showing rather poor scans, or on questionable grade media. Handy for cross-checking.

I had about 20-25 discs to test, including MCC004 (Verbatim), MBIPG101 R04 (Imation) and YUDEN000T03 (Verbatim). All these discs had already been scanned with good results at different speeds in Benq 1650 and NEC 3540, and showed perfect reading curves in the Benq.

Everything went fine as expected, when I had a bad surprise when testing my recently burnt YUDEN000T03 (batch TH000020, Verbatim-branded). What a shock. :eek:

As mentioned above, all three discs showed pretty good PIE/PIF scans, just with slightly high jitter near the end (~10.5 % as reported by the Benq), mainly the @18X burn in the H22N (no surprise, I'm not expecting low jitter from 18X burns :bigsmile: )

I re-runned the TRTs of these T03s for safety. Same figures. Re-runned the TRTs on the other discs (MBI and MCC), perfect reading curves. So it's not the drive per se, just that it seems to hate T03s for some reason.

Something's off with these discs. Never encoutered this behaviour except with lower grade media. I'm done with TY. And this is also the final hammer on the head, for me, concerning the possible relevance of PIE/PIF scanning to predict media readability/compatibility. I quit, my opinion now is that it's about as rational as astrology.

I'll hook up my LiteOn 16P1S to perform additional TRTs and will post them when I get some time. Obviously I can't trust my Benq 1650 alone for TRTs as I had (stupidely) come to think recently.

The first burn is in NEC 3540 1.WB @12X.The second burn is in BENQ 1650 BCDC @12X, SB OFF.The third burn is in LG H22N 1.01 @18X.

As a reference, a MCC004 burnt @18X in the H22H, showing only a minor dip in the 4550 (there is a PIF cluster at the same place, due to an accidental big scratch on the disc).

Of course I can post the 1650 scans of all these discs, just that I'm too lazy now to search among the mess I left in my files while investigating this strange issue. Tomorrow, promise. But trust me, all the scans are OK.

Ouch! I'm kinda relieved that I backup onto discs by other manufacturers as well.

No panic, I don't imply that it could be a trend. But indeed, I'd be interested if some T03 users could perform TRTs in different drives. If there is something off, we need to know as soon as possible.

I bet that Drage has already thouroughly tested his T03, though, so I think there are many chances that mine is an isolated case. Nevertheless, as it's the first time that I encouter this with "premium" media, I'll stick with what has always worked for me and will pass on these (who wants my T03 Verbatims? )

How a disc performs in one drive doesn't necessarily translate to another drive or player, as you know. I would never assume that a good scan or perfect TRT on one drive guarantees anything in another, but it is a indicator that will greatly increase those odds over a poor result obviously. My Liteon DVD-ROM drive simply does not like some media codes for example, although they scan and read well in my other drives. This just goes back to the fact that nothing short of testing in the intended device assures its performance. I will still continue to use quality scanning as one of the ways to test media for the likelyhood of readability and performance in other devices. This is no different than TRT's that I perform, I will use them to test the likelyhood of performance in other devices. With the amount of testing that you've done, I don't think that these examples should have any change in what you've already known regarding probabilities, not guarantees.

No panic, I don't imply that it could be a trend. But indeed, I'd be interested if some T03 users could perform TRTs in different drives. If there is something off, we need to know as soon as possible.

I would never assume that a good scan or perfect TRT on one drive guarantees anything in another

Of course. I had foolishly started to think recently, because of zero contradicting occurences until now, that I could trust (as readable in all my drives) a disc with a flawless TRT in the 1650. Poor me. :doh: :bigsmile: - always learning the hard way: no certitudes.

Of course. I had foolishly started to think recently, because of zero contradicting occurences until now, that I could trust (as readable in all my drives) a disc with a flawless TRT in the 1650. Poor me. :doh: :bigsmile: - always learning the hard way: no certitudes.

I consider my BenQ DW1655 as almost worthless for TRT, except for detecting re-linking problems, because it breezes through flawlessly on discs that can only be read in the BenQ and in my LiteOn drives and that are almost or completely unreadable in my other drives. I have examples handy to post in the proper context.

Of my current drives, I would choose to TRT in the following drives based on their pickyness, and not all of them read at 16x:

NEC ND-3500AG (pickiest, but it scratches disc occasionally, so I rarely use it)Plextor PX-712ANEC ND-4551APioneer DVR-111(D/L)

Of course. I had foolishly started to think recently, because of zero contradicting occurences until now, that I could trust (as readable in all my drives) a disc with a flawless TRT in the 1650. Poor me. :doh: :bigsmile: - always learning the hard way: no certitudes.

To put it simply, NOTHING suprises me when testing media (actually that's probably an exaggeration since I do sometimes encounter things that are certainly not expected, nothing really shocks me might be more accurate). I just find what trends exist in the tests I do and deal with the fact that I can never know for certain how a disc will behave unless I test it under those exact conditions.

I consider my BenQ DW1655 as almost worthless for TRT, except for detecting re-linking problems, because it breezes through flawlessly on discs that can only be read in the BenQ and in my LiteOn drives and that are almost or completely unreadable in my other drives

Strange. Until now, my 1650s were my pickiest reading drives with all my burns. Including their own burns! Another YMMV thing... - maybe that's because you use more TY than I do? (actually makes more sense put this way: maybe that's because I use much less TY than you do?)

Strange. Until now, my 1650s were my pickiest reading drives with all my burns. Including their own burns! Another YMMV thing... - maybe that's because you use more TY than I do? (actually makes more sense put this way: maybe that's because I use much less TY than you do?)

Yes there really are amazing differences between drives of the same model, but both my BenQ DW1655 drives are like that.

I'm curious Franck, do you ever use QSuite to perform 'QScans' on your discs? I have rarely used it myself, but I wonder if these might show anything. Liteon's DVD Scan utility also has a Tracking Error/Focus Error test, though I don't know if your Liteon DVD-ROM is even supported. I mention these tests basically as a random suggestion, I don't know if they would show anything noteworthy or not.

Drage, do you have any personal guess as to what might be less than ideal about this media?

I don't know, but I don't think it's the mechanical properties because my Plextor branded T03 show less decrease in burn quality at 16x and 18x than all my other media, so in this respect I consider them superior.

IIRC the FE/TE tests are also excellent on these babies.

EDIT: Yep. Here are FE/TE scans from two cakeboxes of the TH001330 batch/lot.